November 29, 2009

November 28, 2009

The Hajj (Arabic: حج‎ Ḥaǧǧ) is a pilgrimage to Mecca. It is currently the largest annual pilgrimage in the world, and is the fifth pillar of Islam, a moral obligation that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so. . . . [I]n 2009 [the Hajj takes place] . . . from November 25–29." Click on the image for a larger, crisper version; more at Wikipedia.

November 16, 2009

November 15, 2009

On Nov. 14, "'Robert Erickson' was introduced to the Minnesota Tea Party Against Amnesty as a Minneapolis resident concerned about illegal immigration."

"[He] riled the crowd into a frenzy about the theft, murder and disease inflicted by illegal immigrants . . . from Europe, upon indigenous populations. In a 'Yes Men' moment, the anti-immigrant crowd sat in silence, trying to figure out what just happened."

November 14, 2009

"The acquisition combines one of the largest and fastest growing entertainment communities with expertise in organizing and creating new models for delivery. The combined companies will focus on providing a better, more comprehensive experience . . . and will offer new opportunities for distribution to a vast new audience." Oh wait, that was Google.

UPDATE: What becomes clear from KERA-TV's new documentary, Living with the Trinity, is that regardless of whether any Trinity projects are completed, there's plenty of money to be made half-building them.

"The props: three poodles, General Ideas's signature device. . . . We climbed up the ladders, with soggy, dripping poodles." " . . . . [O]n the borderline between content and context. . . . The pieces of the puzzle don't add up. Are you listening? Do you know what to say?"

November 13, 2009

Suppose it were possible for a foetus to be implanted in a man's body and develop there until ready to be delivered.

Suppose, for example, a couple had had sex, and they weren't married, and they certainly didn't want children, so the man had used protection, but the protection had failed.

Suppose the recently-impregnated mother is killed in a car accident but the foetus survives, and the authorities are able to identify the father, and the foetus can be implanted in his body.

Does anyone believe it would be right for the state to FORCE the father to allow the foetus to be implanted in his body, to carry it within his body for nine months, and endure the hardships and hazards of pregnancy and delivery?

Does anyone believe it would be right for the state to force the father to subject himself to such procedures, hardships, and hazards – OR to pay extra in order to avoid subjecting himself to them, in effect ensuring that only poor fathers will be forced to endure them?

Even if we were to grant to a foetus with the I.Q. of a carrot the rights of a fully-formed human, are we so sure its rights should relegate its mother (but not its father) to the most abject slavery?

How is state-enforced pregnancy not the worst kind of involuntary servitude?

Stupak is aptly named.

(And while we're at it, why is a weeks-old foetus with the I.Q. of a carrot more deserving of protection than a chimpanzee capable of sign language?)

November 11, 2009

A few facts per the most recent American Human Development Report, which compares health, education and income in different nations:

Despite having the second-highest average income per capita in the world, the U.S. has slipped to 12th place – from 2nd in 1990 – in terms of our basic quality of life.

The richest fifth of Americans now earn nearly 15 times the average of the lowest fifth.

We're ranked 42nd in overall life expectancy and 34th in terms of infants' surviving to age one. Citizens of Israel, Greece, Singapore, Costa Rica, South Korea and every western European and Nordic country save one live longer than Americans. Infant mortality in the U.S. is on par with that in Croatia, Cuba, and Estonia. If we could match Sweden's rate, some 20,000 more babies per year would live to their first birthday.

We have a higher percentage of children living in poverty than any of the world's other richest countries. 15% of American children live in families with incomes of less than $1,500 per month.

The U.S. lags far behind many other countries in the support given to working families, particularly in terms of family leave, sick leave and childcare.

14% of the population lack the literacy skills to perform simple, everyday tasks such as understanding newspaper articles and instruction manuals.

Among the 30 rich countries of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.S. has the greatest number of people in prison, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of the total population.

November 6, 2009

November 4, 2009

Cool site, here, "welcomes submissions from musicians, djs, artists, photographers, and other talented people from around the world who are pushing the boundaries of digital and electronic media." (Thanks, Ben!)

November 2, 2009

. . . for First Prize in the voting for projects entered in the National Summit on Arts Journalism organized by the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism and the National Arts Journalism Program. Presentations on the ten finalists can be seen at najp.org/summit, and a slightly larger version of Glasstire's presentation can be seen on YouTube.

Last time I checked online for blood cell animations, pickings were slim. Now one need look no further than YouTube. I rec. you get as many onscreen as possible (these are formatted so that, if you have the option of making this window big enough, you can get a nice, tight 3 x 3 array of embeds), play them all simultaneously, here or otherwise, then click replay as needed to keep them all going for a bit (audio desirable). (Happy Halloween.)

For posts explaining why It's the Derivatives, Stupid (before Planet Money was talking about them), see hereand here; and if you'd like still more, click on the label at the bottom of one of those posts, "follow the money."

Note: I revise my posts. Revisions are made to add info or improve accuracy or allure. If you're interested in my not-best, the Wayback Machine may have preserved earlier versions, or you can e-mail me and I'll see what I've got. If you'd like to quote me, please check back for the most recent version.

You can see a larger version of most of the images on this blog by clicking on them.

"Panics do not destroy capital; they merely reveal the extent to which it has been previously destroyed by its betrayal into hopelessly unproductive works." – John Stuart Mill, before the Manchester Statistical Society, December 11, 1867, as quoted in "Financial Crises and Periods of Industrial and Commercial Depression," T.E. Burton (1902). ["Unproductive works": wars, credit derivatives, etc.]

"The most popular tulip species were scarce and demanded huge prices, peaking with the 'Semper Augustus', which was worth 5,000 Dutch Florins, the same price as a canal-side house in Amsterdam."

Re- this blog:

I mostly do this when I should probably be doing something else, so it's hit-and-miss. Please don't think anything of it if I don't cover your exhibition or issue.

I welcome corrections and comments but reserve the right not to publish those that threaten bodily harm, that consist mainly in name-calling or personal attacks, that dispute well-supported facts without offering credible substantiation, or that appear to be spam or designed to drive traffic to other URL's.

Some current costs of the U.S. wars:

Coalition military deaths in Iraq since March, 2003: 4,766(as of April 22, 2011; click here to update). At least 467 contractors have also died, based on only partial information. Total U.S. military wounded as of as of January 14, 2010: 31,882.

Coalition military deaths in Afghanistan since October, 2001: 2,416 (as of April 22, 2011; click here to update.

Thoughts for the year or whatever, in no particular order:

What a huge debt this nation owes to its “troublemakers.” From Thomas Paine to Martin Luther King, Jr., they have forced us to focus on problems we would prefer to downplay or ignore. Yet it is often only with hindsight that we can distinguish those troublemakers who brought us to our senses from those who were simply troublemakers. Prudence, and respect for the constitutional rights to free speech and free association, therefore dictate that the legal system cut all non-violent protesters a fair amount of slack.– Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Papineau v. Parmley, 465 F.3d 46 (2d Cir. 2006).

I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half.– Jason "Jay" Gould, per Philip Sheldon Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States Vol. 2: From the Founding of the A. F. of L. to the Emergence of American Imperialism, P. 51 (1998, 2d ed.).

On the one hand, information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time.– Stewart Brand to Steve Wozniak, at the first Hacker's Conference in 1984, per Roger Clarke.

A modern economic system demands mass production of students who are not educated and have been rendered incapable of thinking.– U.N.E.F. Strasbourg, On the Poverty of Student Life (1966).

. . . Napoleon . . . said that it wasn't necessary to completely suppress the news; it was sufficient to delay the news until it no longer mattered.– attributed by PRWatch to Martin A. Lee & Norman Solomon, Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media (New York: Lyle Stuart, 1991), p. xvii.

The infowar is the new class war; and information is the new wealth.– moi (2010)

Nothing is inevitable, except defeat for those who give up without a fight.– "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" (1961), script by Irwin Allen & Charles Bennett

Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? . . . But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. . . . All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.– Hermann Goering, per Nuremberg Diary (Farrar, Straus & Co 1947), by Gustave Gilbert

The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous.– George Orwell, 1984

Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders . . . . and millions have been killed because of this obedience . . . . – Howard Zinn, Failure to Quit (South End Press, 2002; originally published 1993)

Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love.– Julian Assange, IQ.ORG, "Witnessing," Wed 03 Jan 2007

I used to be concerned about this mass audience thing . . . not anymore. There are overlapping circles of activity and . . . . It doesn't matter what the volume is . . . These circles are not sealed off from each other, they affect each other.– Yvonne Rainer, in an interview by Lyn Blumenthal for "Women with a Past," Program Six from the series, What Does She Want (VHS 1987, Video Data Bank)

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is allYe know on earth, and all ye need to know.'– John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (1919).

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.– James Madison, Independent Journal, Wednesday, February 6, 1788, The Federalist

[W]e forgot that the question is NOT, how do we get good people into power. The question is, how do we limit the damage the powerful can do to us?– Chris Hedges, "The Failure of the Liberal Class in the United States," address to the Poverty Scholars Program, April 10, 2010.

In all history, there is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.– Sun Tzu, The Art of War, ca. 500 B.C.

The opposite of good is not evil; it's apathy.– Cindy Sheehan in her speech to the Veterans for Peace on August 5, 2005, just before she began her first vigil outside of Pres. G.W. Bush's ranch in Crawford, TX; see vimeo; see also HuffPo.

One sits and beats an old tin can, lard pail.One beats and beats for that which one believes.That's what one wants to get near. Could it after allBe merely oneself, as superior as the earTo a crow's voice?– Wallace Stevens, The Man on the Dump(1923)It's class warfare, [and] my class is winning, but they shouldn't be.– Warren Buffet, CNN Interview, May 25 2005, suggesting we need to raise taxes on the rich.The past is never dead. It's not even past.– William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun, Act I, scene iii (1951)Cui bono (To whose benefit)?– attributed by Marcus Tullius Ciceroto Lucius Cassius Longina Ravilla, ca. 125 B.C.The higher the buildings, the lower the morals.– Noel Coward (1899-1973) (numerous sites attribute this to Coward, but I've found none that provides a more precise citation)

Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity. – attributed to Marshall McLuhan, http://www.marshallmcluhan.com/poster.htmlThey'd rather some people die for your mistake, than that they lived, but that they lacked a leader. – David Mamet, script forHoffa (1992)It was too late to prevent the great Fall, but it was still possible, at least, to cut short the intermediate period of chaos.– Isaac Asimov, Second Foundation, P. 87 (ed. Bantam June, 2004; first published 1953)

You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.– Abraham Lincoln (1805-1865)My heart rousesthinking to bring you newsof somethingthat concerns youand concerns many men. Look atwhat passes for the new.You will not find it there but indespised poems.It is difficultto get the news from poemsyet men die miserably every dayfor lackof what is found there.– William Carlos Williams, "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower" (1883-1963) (I don't own this and find no online source that mentions where it was published; pls help if you can)All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.– Edmund Burke (1729-1797; see link re- variants and possible misattribution)

I consider it completely unimportant who . . . will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this: who will count the votes, and how.– Joseph Stalin (1878-1953), per the Memoirs of Stalin's Secretary

First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.– Mahatma Ghandi (1869-1948)

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.– Margaret Mead (1901-1978)

The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.– Che Guevara, Intercontinental Press (Vol. 3 January - April 1965); also in Che Guevara speaks: Selected Speeches and Writings (1967).The United States is the only nation in history to go from barbarism to decadence without any civilization in between.– Norman O. Brown, Closing Time (described as a graffito in Paris, May 1968; p. 29, ed. Vintage Books, 1974)

Ring the bells that still can ring.Forget your perfect offering.There is a crack in everything;That's how the light gets in.– Leonard Cohen, "Anthem" (1997?)

If, one day, a people desires to live, then fate will answer their call.And their night will then begin to fade, and their chains break and fall.For he who is not embraced by a passion for life will dissipate into thin air,

* * * * *Then it was earth I questioned: “Mother, do you hate mankind?”And Earth responded: “I bless ambitious and aspiring souls,Who do not flinch at danger. I condemn those out of step with time,People content to live like stone."– “If the People Wanted Life One Day,” Abou-Al-kacem El-chebbi (also spelled other ways, such as Abu Al-Qasim Ash-Shabi), known as the "poet of the Tunisian Revolution"Hatred never ceases by hatred;But by love alone is healed.This is an ancient and eternal law.-- "Dhammapada," Ch. 1, the Twin Verses 5, as quoted by Maha Ghosananda

There is no responsibility, without freedom;No freedom, without power;No power, without knowledge; No knowledge, without love.– moi (1976)

. . . and in the mornI'll bring you to your ship and so to Naples,Where I have hope to see the nuptialOf these our dear-beloved solemnized;And thence retire me to my Milan, whereEvery third thought shall be my grave.– W. Shakespeare, The Tempest (ca. 1611), Act V, scene i, MIT's Moby Ed.